Philosophy (Witt) and Communications (Lillie)

In Anaxagoras, he makes a claim that Nous (mind) controls everything. This idea was interesting to me because it was totally opposite ideas from the others and it made me think about deep thoughts and questions about “mind” in relation to the modern world and Parmenides.

In fragment 12, there is detailed explanation of the Nous. Some facts of are: it has a share of everything, unlimited, self-ruling, mixed with no other thing, finest of all things, the purest, the greatest strength, maintains all discernment about everything, and controls the whole revolution, more specifically controls all things that have soul. Until now, other philosophers claimed that it was either material that was changing or the change itself that shaped the world. However, he suggests whole different perspective that there are homogeneous stuffs that are together (mixed) and the mind controls over them to revolve.

It was also interesting how he said that the mind was the “purest.” This made me relate to the modern world. Nowadays, it is hard to tell that our mind is the “purest.” There are positive aspects but there are ambition, greed and other negative aspects that are mixed in the mind that controls the revolution. As time goes by, there are more elements adding onto mind. Consequently, I could come up with an idea that environment or time changes and moves the homogenous stuffs and the mind rather than the mind itself. Another interesting idea was that he states that minds have the “greatest strength” to control over everything that has soul but as Parmenides questioned, “can we actually trust our senses?” Senses are part of mind working so wouldn’t logical truth with reasoning be the “greatest strength?”